


Ready to Run

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Dog, His Songbird, and His Urchins [2]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Acceptance, Adoption, Canon-Typcial Homophobia, Canon-Typical Transphobia, Family, Fear, Gen, M/M, New Beginnings, Shattering Stereotypes, creating a family, new home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 14:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15002930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Upon his arrival, Haden wants to flee Nestor and Okha's house. Set before Bloodhound.





	Ready to Run

Ready to Run

Nestor—Haden had decided that if he was going to under the cove’s roof, he should think of him by name rather than by stilted title—herded Haden and Truda back to his lodgings, which turned out to be a sturdy two-story home with wooden walls painted as bright as the sunrise over the Emerald Ocean in honor of the finicky Wave Walker. 

After unlocking the door, Nestor guided them into a kitchen redolent with mouthwatering clams being cooked into a creamy chowder. 

“Okha.” By way of introduction, Nestor jerked his chin at a Carthaki with amber skin matching the gemstones shimmering in the jewelry hanging from the figure’s neck and earlobes. Haden would have assumed that Okha, stirring a cauldron of the enticing chowder over the blazing hearth flames, was a mot if Nestor hadn’t continued, “My landlord.” 

Haden’s gob fell open at the revelation that the person he had taken to be a mot was a cove wearing a necklace and earrings, but before he could stutter out his shock over Okha’s identity, Nestor addressed his oddly-dressed landlord as Okha glanced up from the cooking, “Okha, these urchins are…” 

“Haden,” interrupted Haden as it occurred to him that Nestor had never asked him or his sister for their names. 

“And Truda, his sister,” Truda chimed in. 

“Going to serve as my spies and messengers in exchange for their keep around here.” Nestor completed his sentence as if Haden and Truda had never interjected. “When they’re here, you can put them to work with what chores you find to prevent them from lazing about or getting their noses into trouble.” 

“Their first chore is to bathe.” Okha waggled a ladle at Haden and Truda, and Haden saw that Okha’s nails were painted bronze like a flower girl’s. “They’re filthy, and I won’t have them dragging dirt through my house. You can lead them to the room prepared for them and then heat up a tub of water to carry up to them.” 

“Your wish is my command, my songbird.” Nestor wrapped his arms around Okha’s waist and trailed kisses along the nape of Okha’s neck until Okha shooed him away with the ladle. 

Bile burned up Haden’s throat as he watched, gape-jawed, as this scene unfolded. Nestor, he recognized with a twist of his tripes, was a bardash, and Okha might not be his landlord so much as his spintry. All that would have been fine enough to Haden—he hadn’t lived so long on the streets by being a prude, Trickster knew—but it was a truism among the crowd Haden ran with that every bardash craved a boy toy to swive. Haden had no desire to be Nestor’s boy toy. He would go to the cages and the quarries before he let Nestor swive him. 

Haden’s knees were trembly as pudding, and it was a marvel to him that he didn’t wobble as he and Truda, apparently so excited by the prospect of a thorough wash that she had been oblivious to the threat Nestor presented, followed Nestor up the staircase and down a hallway to the most spacious bedroom Haden had ever seen. A wardrobe and a pair of nightstands furnished the room along with two beds separated by a seaweed green curtain. 

“I hope you approve of the room we’ve prepared for you.” Nestor’s smile as he lured Haden and Truda into the room where Haden suspected they would be anything but safe should have been a crime deserving of the axman, Haden thought. 

“Ye’ve prepared a room for us?” Haden posed the sharp question to raise Truda’s guard and make it easier to convince her to flee as soon as Nestor departed to heat up the water for the baths Haden had decided they would never take. 

“Okha and I can’t have children.” Nestor’s tone was soft as Haden’s was sharp, and Haden mentally cursed the cove for sounding trustworthy as he plotted to swive them. “For a long time, we’ve talked of adopting urchins.” 

“I wager ye have.” Haden snorted his disdain for the bardash and his feigned innocence. 

“Make yourselves comfortable.” Nestor plainly chose to ignore Haden’s derision while gesturing at their beds. “I’ll be back with the water for your baths soon.” 

As soon as Nestor left, closing the door behind him, Truda collapsed on her bed with a contented sigh that rapidly morphed into a startled giggle. “This mattress bounces when I lay on it. It must be made of goose feathers instead of straw. I always dreamed of sleepin’ on a goose feather mattress.” 

“I’m sure they’ve a good reason for makin’ yer goose feather dreams come true.” Haden, who had no wish to sprawl on the bed where Nestor might try to swive him, folded his arms across his chest. 

“They might.” Truda tossed her pillow at his face. “Mayhap ye should stop bein’ so suspicious of them elsewise they might take offense and thrash us. Me wrist still smarts from the baton, ye know.” 

“We’ve got to make ourselves scare afore they can thrash or swive us.” Haden ducked the pillow his sister hurled at him and fixed her with his most somber gaze. “This Nestor is a bardash, and everyone knows a bardash will swive a street boy like me if given a chance and mayhap will do the same to a gixie like ye since ye’re still flat as a board and yet to grow into a mot’s body.” 

“Let’s wait to bolt until after we’ve bathed and eaten.” Truda’s eyes were shutting as she lounged on her goose feather bed. “I haven’t washed in so many years I’ve forgotten what it’s like to not stink of street scummer, and there’s the smell of clam chowder in the kitchen. I haven’t tasted clam chowder since Ma and Da died.” 

“I’m scamperin’ now.” Haden stalked over to the window to conceal how his little sister’s words cut him to the core. He did his best to look after her—going hungry himself to feed her if need be—and it stung like a slap in the jaw that people who would use her as a doxie could provide for her better than him. “Ye can come with me or roll yer dice with these strange coves.” 

Before Truda could reply, there was a creak of hinges as Nestor, bearing an almost overflowing tub of sudsy water, nudged into the room. He must have heard more than enough of the conversation to unsettle Haden for he remarked tersely, nodding at the window Haden had opened, “In this household, we leave through the doors, not the windows, Haden. Before you sneak out, you might be interested in knowing that I’ve never—as you so colorfully put it—swived anyone who wasn’t willing. Moreover, my tastes, peculiar though they might be, aren’t for bony lads and lasses like you and your little sister.” 

Haden stared into Nestor’s face, trying to detect the lie that had to be written there. When he couldn’t read the falsehood no matter how much he squinted, he flushed and shuffled his feet, awed and embarrassed by the cove’s sincerity. When he had swallowed the frog leaping in his throat, he mumbled as if he he had opened his home to Nestor rather than the other way around, “Then I don’t care that you and Okha are canoodlin’, sir.” 

“So nice to be accepted under my own roof.” Nestor punctuated his wry observation with an inviting wave at the tub of soapy water. “Your bath awaits, Master Haden.”


End file.
